Traveling to Distant Shores

Before my DSLR I took pictures. Captures of the world around me in all its wonder and beauty. Sometimes I think I take trips to take pictures vs taking trips where I just capture pictures. I don't know if that makes much sense. The picture above is from Norway taken in 2005 when I was first starting to define my trip as a photographic journey. However I would still say at this point I was not trying to be serious just having fun and no attempt at composition and my exposure set to auto is about all I could muster. But internally it does.  Editing has put a major drag on my photography,  Perhaps because you understand the pushing of the  button is the beginning of the journey to its final destination  you hesitate more and click less. Not that this is a bad thing. But not all journeys need to be abroad or to distant shores. Sometimes the greatest journeys are just arising out of your bed.

I was looking at some pictures by Annie Leibovitz and I was struck by the candor and the  nakedness of the pictures. I don;t think all the pictures were meant to favor the subject. but to deliver a message of singularity. I think we work so hard to create all these happy moments  that become the source of our memory. But there is a lot more to life than happy moments. To not capture these moments is to rob us of some of the most important moments in our lives. the valleys as well as the mountains describe the landscape.

Do I think we should  pull out  camera phone and do a selfie int he middle of a funeral. No, but I think sometimes a look at the real us the real moments is far more telling than the happy smiles. This is going to be difficult to do and to ask someone else to do it  is pushing boundaries perhaps I should first go  myself. So I am going to start trying to do some self portraits that are designed to show the person behind the eyes.  This will definitely be a distant shore.